The artist in any medium is the happiest of men (people, if you insist), in one sense – if he/she has wisdom. Because when things go well, that’s great. But anybody can enjoy that. The artist is able to enjoy things that go wrong, too, because it’s grist for the mill. Accidents, inconveniences, and disasters are what works of art are made of.

Which means that Danish Day, this past Sunday at the Danish American Center in Minneapolis, was a good experience in itself, but an artistic wash.

We’ve had passing few nice days this spring in these parts, but Sunday happened to be one of them. The sun shone, but the air was cool enough to make even long periods of sitting in the sun pleasant (except for one of our Vikings who has red hair and had to seek the shade). The crowds were good, swelled by hordes of Minnesotans punchy with extended cabin fever. I sold a satisfactory number of books, and all the people I spoke with were pleasant. Generally the phrase “a good time was had by all” is pro forma, but I think in this case it was substantially true.

The only real disappointment was that – for some reason – the Danish hot dogs (pølser) were not available this year. A Danish hot dog, I’ve learned in festivals past, is a foot long hot dog with mustard and what seems to be shredded onion rings. I don’t care for mustard, but I’ve come to enjoy the Danish pølser. But there were none. They did have a very nice ordinary foot long, though, and I didn’t complain. Also æbelskiver, the delicious spherical pancake (or waffle), and fransk vaffler, an actual waffle sandwich with something like Bavarian cream inside. Compared to Norwegian Day and Swedish Day in Minnehaha Park, the Danes do themselves proud in the food department.

I had a plan to take some good pictures of the combat shows, to placate those among our readers who asked for more gratuitous violence in my reports from the Tivoli Festival in Elk Horn, Iowa (also Danish. I’ve been getting in touch with my inner Jutlander of late). But although I remembered to bring my camera, I forgot that I myself am part of the combat show. So I wasn’t in a position to take pictures, especially while wearing my combat mittens.

Thus you’ll have to take my word for it that I won most of my fights, including a crowd-pleasing dispatch of one opponent at close quarters with my skramasax.

Professor Jerram Barrs’ book, Echoes of Eden, has 11 beginning criteria for judging the arts. For example: “Is giftedness from God evident in the work of a particular composer or performer of music, poet or novelist, painter, sculptor, or filmmaker? We should ask this question about the presence of giftedness for all artists, whether Christian or not.”

Reader TWS requested a picture of fighting from the Tivoli Fest in Elk Horn, Iowa. This is the best one I got. Unfortunately the selection is small, because my camera batteries ran down.

I suspect there are many followers of Christ who are called to the arts (they may not believe they are qualified to be labeled Christian artists) who feel out of place in the church or maybe at home or maybe everywhere. In this post, Philip Ryken lists many reasons artists feel uneasy in their churches. He says, “…Christians called to draw, paint, sculpt, sing, act, dance, and play music have extraordinary opportunities to honor God in their daily work and to bear witness to the grace, beauty, and truth of the gospel.”

We may be discouraged by other believers who commodify all art or praise cheap or bad art regularly. Some never offer to pay for the artistic work they want, but they also praise successful artists as if material success validates their artistic call. I’ve felt the tension of thinking of art only in terms of evangelism or pre-evangelism. But to requote N.T. Wright, artists “have a vocation to re-imagine and re-express the beauty of God, to lift our sights and change our vision of reality.” I want to climb that ladder, but I fear I will never leave the ground.